


wooden tides to run

by AstronautSquid



Category: Black Sails
Genre: Character Study, Domestic Fluff, M/M, Post-Canon, woodworking
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-06-27
Updated: 2017-06-27
Packaged: 2018-11-19 15:20:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,616
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11316138
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AstronautSquid/pseuds/AstronautSquid
Summary: James was almost certain he had walked more miles on wooden planks than on solid ground in his life.





	wooden tides to run

**Author's Note:**

> this is technically a companion piece to the [stages of appreciation](http://archiveofourown.org/series/712266) series, but works just as well as a stand-alone. it takes place sometime in the year or so before the series starts.

 James had longed for a respite from the sea for a long time.

He had dreaded the separation for just as long.

As with all things, neither pain nor joy was perfectly complete, and he enjoyed the solid rich earth as much as he missed the capriciousness of the ocean. He was not entirely surprised by that. He _was_ surprised that it was his dog's son of a father whose legacy provided him with both a living and a way to settle his mind on nights when its currents were in turmoil.

Of all the things from his past he had expected to excert its influence on him, this was not one he had expected to be so significant. His father had worked mostly as mate to a ship's carpenter, though intermittently he had taken regular landbound work the way James was doing now.

With the spectre of Captain Flint still hovering about every port of the New World, James had decided to keep his distance, lest he be recognised - not to mention that Thomas, for all his talents, did not have the makings of a sailor. Separation was out of the question, and James had found his newest home in a town close enough to the shore to still catch the ocean breeze, though it took several hours of riding to reach the ocean. And the town had found, in James Barlow, a new carpenter.

There was something deeply pleasing about working with wood.

It wasn't temperamental as the sea at first glance; but what was a tree if not ever-changing, ever-moving in its quest for growth? The whorls and gnarls were like waves made to last, their shape a testament to its history, in the same way a wave was formed by wind and currents. It was like holding a piece of the sea, made to endure by unknown hands.

James was almost certain he had walked more miles on wooden planks than on solid ground in his life. As much as the sea held tightly onto his soul, it was the ships that had sheltered his body within their bellies, creaking and groaning and sighing like giant slumbering beasts around him.

Sailing the _Walrus_ had taken him soaring to new heights; never had he felt more alive than pursuing prizes, braving storms, feeling within his own blood a resonance of the ocean’s steady pounding against the hull of his ship. In those moments, his entire being had been attuned to the give in the masts, the pull the rigging exerted over the ship, the edge of tension that him and the wood and the ropes would dance just short of breaking. The wide stretch of the gunwale and the endless circular run of the steering wheel’s handles had provided the only handholds for him to grasp the control that the sea would forever deny him.

In battle, James had been showered with splinters, mingling with salt spray as canon balls tore up the wooden world around him.

He remembered the heady, wine-rich smell of a prize’s hold loaded with precious timber.

These days, when the mood struck him, he'd sit on the porch of their house, whittling away at pieces of wood left over from the day's work. In his hands, they would take the familiar shapes of waves, stilled in their roaring and rolling and cresting, while the wind pulled great big rushing sighs from the tree crowns around the house, almost like the ocean's breath itself.

It wasn't the same, and never would be. But wouldn't it be a sorry kind of beauty, were it so easily replaced by another?

Thomas loved to run his hands all over the figures, and James liked the thought of his fingerprints finding their mirror in the swirls and whorls of the wood. The tips of Thomas' long fingers dipped into the grooves and hollows as if trying to memorize them so he could recall them should he lose his eyes overnight.

Sometimes, when Thomas underwent one of those disquieting spells of going still and unapproachable, James would sit close by and work on one of his carvings until Thomas found his way back to the present. Once in a while, Thomas would wordlessly pick up one of the knives and an abandoned carving. They would sit in silence, amicably close, James forming oceans and Thomas simply chipping at his piece of wood until it was too small to hold comfortably.

Rage was on James' mind often, but the focused precision of whittling away at ever-same, ever-new pieces alleviated the pressure somewhat. It soothed him, wielding the blade with skill, even if he had exchanged the carving up of people for less bloody targets. The handle felt warm and familiar in his hand.

James had lined a chest with a quarter inch of cedar wood to keep their clothes free from moths. At times Thomas would barely finish putting on fresh things before James pulled him back into bed, pressing him under tender laughing protest into the blankets and pushing his nose into the curve of Thomas' neck, redolent of warm skin and clean fabric and fragrant cedar.

In between the writing and transcribing and translating local businesses paid him to do, Thomas would often go for long walks, roaming and returning with his cheeks teased to redness by the wind. Sometimes he arrived bearing pieces of wood he had found, pressing them into James' hands like offerings.

He'd brought James oak, a slowly-grown old tree with a tight grain. It had been laborious to work, but held detail well. James had crowned that wave's crest with a layer of seafoam more elaborate than he usually had a mind to.

Thomas had brought a cross-section of young river birch, the peeling bark cracking and breaking paper-like, orange and brittle beneath his fingers. He left fine dust beneath James' ear as Thomas kissed him in greeting, their hands meeting between them on Thomas' find.

Black cherry wood had been a gift from one of the nearby farmers. Thomas had run into his children who had been clambering around an old tree, stuffing their faces with sweet fruit. One of the thickest branchest had given way under their collective weight, and Thomas had caught the youngest, the only one who had not managed to keep from falling with it. Her mother had insisted he accept handfuls of cherries along with a section of the coveted wood. Thomas' shirt had been stained scarlet when he returned, holding the hem with one hand to make an apron for his bounty of cherries, a pair of them draped over his ear by the farmer's enthusiastic youngest daughter. His mouth had been as red and ripe for the taking as the treasure he had carried.

The finest piece Thomas had ever found had been a massive branch of hackberry, felled by a recent storm. James had found the wood responsive and easy to shape, revealing bands of colour like the delicate layers of a cake. Aside from a figurine, he had also fashioned a set of spoons out of them, seasoning the wood with oil before adding them to their kitchen drawer. He felt twinges in his belly whenever he saw Thomas use them, disappearing into his mouth as James thought of days when Thomas had been able to indulge as often as he wanted in desserts as decadent as the lovely ribbons of dark and light in the wood.

Thomas had had to learn what made for good carving wood. James had refused yew, for being poisonous, and maple, for its dust made his eyes swell and his throat itch. All the others he had somehow forced into compliance despite stubborn knots and unfortunate grains, even if they had not turned out his most presentable of results.

The greatest part of what Thomas carried home was still moist, so that it would crack or warp slightly once it dried. He knew he should have the patience to properly let the wood dry before setting his knife to it, but James was rarely in the mood to leave a gift from Thomas untouched for that long. Something about the fresh wood excited him, the knowledge of this living thing brought to him like the spoils of a raid, a heart still beating faintly before submitting to desiccation. Once, a piece of pine had been so full of sap it had been unworkable right away. James had pressed sticky, fragrant thumbprints into Thomas' temples and taken him slowly, hungrily, against their bookshelf.

At first he had tried filling the cracks with wax but something about the result didn't quite satisfy him. James had once seen a ceramic bowl from Asia amidst the treasures in Eleanor's office; it had looked as if it had been broken and fixed by joining the pieces together with gold. He liked the idea, but even if they were not quite poor, he could not justify purchasing gold for this frivolous undertaking. He melted down tin instead and poured it carefully into the gaps. It coursed like veins of quicksilver through the wood's grain and caught the light along its meandering path.

As time went on and neither his nor Thomas' wounds disappeared but merely scabbed over, James allowed most of the fissures in the wood to remain as they were. He would catch Thomas running his nails along the edges of the cracks and see the fine blonde hair on his arms rise at the sensation.

They hadn't owned anything but what they could carry when they first moved into the cottage.

As they built a life, the mantle slowly filled with an ocean of James' making.

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading ❤ comments are highly appreciated.
> 
> come say hi on [tumblr](http://squid-inspiration.tumblr.com/)


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